Hot desking allows your organization to make the best use of office space by having employees sign in and book a shared device for their workday.

It gives users the benefits of a personal meeting device, including meeting notifications 5 minutes before the start time. Notifications originate from the user's personal calendar, and they join their meetings with One Button to Push. Hot desking includes the standard Webex Meeting features, such as a personal whiteboard. Users can start a Personal Room meeting from Join Webex, and they get controls for meetings that they host.

A personalized Webex Assistant for Devices is available with support for phrases such as "Join my personal meeting room."

Configuration

To add this feature to a device, you create a Workspace in Control Hub, and assign Hot desking as a Workspace scheduling option. You can also add it to an existing workspace.

A booking expires at 5:00 p.m. by default. But you can customize it for your organization. The setting is Hotdesking DefaultBookingEndTime on Control Hub.

For more information, see the following articles:

  • Add Shared Devices and Services to a Workspace.

  • Add Services to an Existing Workspace with Webex Room, Desk, and Board Devices.

  • Device Configurations for Room and Desk Devices and Webex Boards.

Book a device

After you turn on the feature, users sign in and book their device in one of two ways:

To use the NFC USB-C or QR code in Webex Edge for sign-in, enable the Cloud Proximity as follows:

  • Proximity > Mode to On

  • CloudProximity > Mode to On

  • Use their computer to sign in and book their device—users pair their device to their Webex App on their computer with a USB-C cable. This feature doesn't require any configuration.

  • Use their mobile phone to sign in and book their device—this feature is available only on Webex Desk Hub. Users hold the mobile phone's NFC chip against the Desk Hub NFC icon for one second.

    Users must know the location of the mobile phone's NFC chip for a successful NFC experience. Each manufacturer places the chip in a different location so users should consult their phone documentation. But for Apple users, the chip lies to the right of their camera. For Android users, it's in the middle of the phone.

    Some older phones don't support NFC. Thick protective cases can also block the NFC chip.

    NFC pairing is On by default. You turn it Off with the Hot desking parameter in Control Hub. To turn NFC pairing on or off, navigate to BYOD > NFCPairing and set the following configuration:

    • Enabled - The NFC pairing is On and you can use NFC to sign in on Desk Hub.

    • Disabled - The NFC pairing is not in use.

For more information on booking a device, see Sign in and reserve your device with Hot desking.

Calls and Hot desking

A Hot desking device is a shared device so note the following points about calling:

  • The device uses the directory number (DN) for the workspace. Users can use it to place and answer calls, even when not signed in.

  • When a user signs in, the device reprovisions with the user's personal DN. If configured, their call history and Webex calendar also load to the device. The user can use the device for making calls and joining Webex meetings as they would on their own device.

  • Upon signing out, the user's personal data is cleared from the device for privacy.

Limitations

Note the following limitations before you turn on the feature:

  • Activate the device as a shared workspace and not in Personal mode.

  • Users can sign in and book devices only within the same organization or cluster. You can't sign in to devices in different organization or cluster.

  • You can't use a hybrid calendar for the workspace.

  • Hot desking requires the RoomOS 11 user interface. For more information, see New user experience with RoomOS 11.